Classical thinkers crown literary writers and artists as persons with special gifts that enable them to write special lines from mysterious sources. With inspiration from the gods, the artists have the ability to convey prophetic messages absolutely untainted by what happens around. Modernist scholars however suggest that the cultural environment drives the artists to their writing table to resolve conflicts they cannot solve practically. This article extends the second thesis that although the ordinary audience perceives creative writers as normal people who diligently pursue their passion; internal conflicts stemming from the culture compel one to creative writing. The article contends that psychological conflicts arise from strands of otherness such as political, class, cultural, age, gender and self otherness. Using postcolonial and psychological theories, the article interrogates settings and how they affect the psychological states of the literary writers in Hisham Matar's The Return, Buchi Emecheta's The Joy's of Mother hood, Nuruddin Farah's Close Sesame and Brian Chikwava's Harare North.